“The next year is a really important season for us, because that’ll be our preperation for the World Cup” Tonga Manager Tevita Tu’ifua
For a side like Tonga who were trounced 56-0 by Scotland on Sunday, the Nations Championship does nothing but widen the gap between them and the sides above in international rugby.
The Nations Championship and Nations Cup will change the international game and the fixtures we see with more high stakes games throughout the World Cup cycle, while also creating less chances to see games like we saw at Murrayfield yesterday.
The idea of creating more northern vs southern hemisphere games between World Cups is certainly an ideal situation for the ‘Tier 1’ nations, allowing new additions to squads the experience to play some of rugby’s heavy hitters in competitive tests.
Tonga captain Ben Tameifuna made his opinions of the competition clear in his press conference after Sundays defeat. He said: “We need these games, we need to be in these deep waters.“
Tameifuna then spoke on the difference between Scotland and Tonga, saying: “This Scotland teams been together the last four months or so, they’ve been together a while, we’ve been together for two weeks”.
While claiming it’s not an excuse for the performance on Sunday, it is clear that more games and time together for Tonga, Uruguay and other Tier 2 sides will help in their preparation for the higher ranked sides like Scotland.
It’s only going to get harder for ‘Tier 2’ nations to get up to speed against the higher ranked nations. Looking at the Pacific Nations cup, Tonga put in a good showing against similarly ranked nations like Samoa, and lost by smaller margins to the lower ranked ‘Tier 1’ sides like Fiji and Japan.
While the inaugural World Rugby Nations Cup is coming in 2026, giving more game time and opportunities for Tier 2 sides, it only leads to less time to be in the “deep waters” that Tameifuna spoke about.
